All My CDs, pt 109 - 200 km/h In the Wrong Lane

200 km/h in the Wrong Lane - t.A.T.u.

I was surprised and a little embarrassed a few days ago when I discovered that this CD is still in my collection after well over a decade. Like my Linkin Park CDs, I liked it for a while when I was a teenager, but that fondness has not endured into my adulthood and I have since come to regard it with a kind of shame. I can never really escape the knowledge that even as kids these days are fawning over inane and overcommercialized pop music, in my adolescence I fawned over the same sort of claptrap myself.

When I started playing this album once again, I was expecting to feel more of that shame. Instead, I found myself enjoying it, and cranking it up on my car stereo until it could probably be heard half a block away while I drummed along on my steering wheel. It’s catchy techno dance music with angsty lyrics about star-crossed love affairs - perfect teenager fare. I don’t know whether this stuff will ever go out of style.

When I was young I was especially fond of bilingual musicians. For a few years I think I harbored a delusion that I could learn Spanish by listening to Shakira. While that didn’t turn out to be true, while listening to t.A.T.u. I found myself reminded not of my high school years when I bought and enjoyed the album, but my first year of college and my Russian class. Words and phrases that I’d forgotten jumped out at me from the songs. I even remembered mentioning the Russian version of the song’s hit single - All The Things She Said, or Ya Soshla S Uma - when my teacher taught us that idiomatic phrase.

To this day, I prefer that particular song in Russian. Perhaps the language just sounds more exotic and pleasing to my ears, or perhaps it’s easier to ignore the cliches when they’re sung in a language I’m only passingly familiar with.

My favorite song on the album, both then and now, is Malchik Gay. Partly because despite its lyrics being just as angsty as the rest, it manages to be the most cheerful-sounding song on the album, partly because it’s a techno song prominently featuring an unaltered acoustic guitar. It also amuses me to realize what counted as “edgy” in pop music back in 2002.

I enjoyed listening to this CD for the past few days, but I don’t know if I ever will again.

Next: Warm Strangers